SpaceSimCentral

The US space agency has announced it is extending its Mars helicopter mission. Nasa said the first three flights of the drone, called Ingenuity, had worked so well it would now be moving from a demonstration to an operational phase. This means the chopper will now support Nasa’s Perseverance Rover, helping with its hunt for signs of life.

Far out!

Posted by: @robert55
Have you already seen the photo that has been taken by Ingenuity helicopter? The image has been taken on 17 feet above the ground and showes us Mars` rusty, red surface of Mars. [url]https://hypebeast.com/2021/4/nasa-mars-ingenuity-helicopter-first-color-photo-reveal?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ig_bio[/url]

Not sure why some of your post need to be moderated, something for D1 to look into.

The sound of Ingenuity...

Ingenuity completed its third flight. New image. Ingenuity exprimental helicopter conducting third flight. Reaching much higher than before, I reckon about 10 metres. Also a vastly longer horizontal flight. The take off point was out of the frame to the left. Ingenuitity can be seen in front of the Jezero Crater delta whilst flying. Second image shows Ingenuity landed in a new lovation with the Neretva Vallis (former river valley that flowed into Jezero Crater about 3.5 billion years ago) and Jezero Crater delta in the background. Ingenuity flew for 50 metres.

The taking off of the Ingenuity helicopter is a pretty great achievement for the Perseverance mission and for whole space exploration area. Excellent work by NASA's scientists and engineers. I guess that this flight will help humans in futher Mars exploration and of course it will help in making the first crewed mission to the red planet

Lets talk about the fifth flight of Ingenuity. The 5th flight of Ingenuity was successful and landed in new location. It was a one-way flight and during this flight drone gained a new altitude — 10 meters. It was a new record. On the whole, helicopter just started to perform its mission — to explore new sites for the rover, and it does it successfully. So as you can see Ingenuity makes an important job and helps scientists in the exploration of Mars

Looks like the Chinese have landed their lander and rover on mars.

Posted by: @pinback
Looks like the Chinese have landed their lander and rover on mars.

Yep! Rover wars? Competing for resources already, perhaps? Or simply pure science?

Posted by: @cody Posted by: @pinback
Looks like the Chinese have landed their lander and rover on mars.

Yep! Rover wars? Competing for resources already, perhaps? Or simply pure science?

Given how the Chinese think long term, they made be thinking of making a historical claim based on where their lander land in the future.

Thats's pretty staggering how fast China is developing its space technology and developing itself in space exploration area. I know that this country is going to make its own Mars mission with crew in some time. I don't think that they will be able to outrace Space X however the result of their work can stagger whole world.

The Chinese have one big advantage over Nasa in the that the communist party of China is willing to fund their space exploration over a long period of time, unlike Nasa which is at the mercy of which ever administration is in power for it's budget.
As for the commercial companies it's too early to say weather they have the legs to keep going.

Posted by: @pinback
The Chinese have one big advantage over Nasa...

They perhaps have another big advantage: they won't really care how many of their own people may die along the way. If NASA was to suffer a few deaths during manned exploration, there'd be an outcry, and it'd knock them back. The shuttle disasters show that.
A cynical opinion, I know - but as far as I can see, that's the way of it.

There is a lot of enthusiasm and skepticism around Mars colonization. Also mixing life footprint from the past and building a new ecosystem into one subject.
But think that of the amount of work done and experience gained during past several years on a regular basis.
There is technology, opportunity, concept and a goal.
For me, result should be like a least a station beyond the Earth. Never experienced conditions before for a human to adapt (for how long it's possible), push horizons and evolve technology. Gather new information and use it.
Go and try rather than daydream.
Drone flight teams are very happy after successful launches even though not so spectacular.

Ingenuity has had a software upgrade and its mission extended - an awesome little machine!